Tornado of Terror: Friendship is Magic
by ixmauk
Summary: The Tornado of Terror is transported to a world where friendship is a force of the universe.


He had humbled her in front of her sister's group. He personally disliked that kind of overbearing, 'I know better than you', people. Still, his own actions didn't sit well with him. It was unfair; she was still in recovery. Bitten by curiosity and some remorse, he followed her to kind-of apologize.

She was strong, relatively. Saitama had heard she had not lost a battle until the Monster Association raid. How did she became a hero? He saw her cause a lot of collateral damage, hurt fellow heroes, and show a general irresponsible attitude.

In spite of this, the Hero Association kept her as number two. Weren't there stronger, more cooperative heroes?

"You are practically falling over. Can you make it back by yourself?"

"Oh god damn stubborn jerk! What do you want!?" She said.

"Are you sure you are fine? Your head is still bleeding," Saitama asked.

"No way I couldn't notice that, thick head! I'm fine ,you idiot! Now get on your way." She was walking at a moderate pace, refusing to face him.

"Can I ask something?" he said, pausing briefly. "I heard you said people were a waste of time; and yet, you work as a hero. You must care about them in some way. Why you are a hero, Tornado?"

"What do you know!?" She felt faint, and decided to lower her voice. "People doesn't matter to me beyond stopping monsters from killing them. Don't lecture me boiled egg. I bet you are as lonely as me. Tell me, do you have someone to call 'friend' who isn't a hero? When was the last time you talked to someone outside the Hero Association?"

Saitama didn't have a accurate answer. He had talked to some police officers the other day, but he wasn't sure if he could call them friends. The air quieted and chilled. "I, ah-" Saitama sneezed.

"See, you are as lonely as a solitary lice in your bald head," she barbed. She turned. "Ok, I guess I can tell you-"

The air pressure dropped. Saitama felt something immense approaching. His eyes traced an arc. In the horizon behind Tornado there was a wall of light. It had quickly extended north to south, apparently surrounding them.

Instinctively his fist prepared to strike. His foot dug on the ground before impulsing his whole body closer to his objective.

"No! Wait!" he heard saying. At the same time a translucent capsule formed.

* * *

"It's because Bla-" Her mouth hit the ground, and she had no idea why. She lifted herself before coming into terms with her loss of face. She found orientation fast but she overcompensated and almost fell backwards. There was the texture of dust on the tip of her tongue. She spat.

Saitama was besides a purple haired woman who had an uncertain look set on her. "Sorry, there is that, uh, light show and she," Saitama said, pausing abruptly.

"Starlight," said the woman.

"Starlight told me not to punch it. There was this long, dense explanation I did not get…" he continued.

Tornado was giving deaf ears. She was focused on the woman's hands: they were glowing a barely noticeable purple. The sky surrounding them was tinged similarly. "Who are you?"

Her eyes fixed on Tornado mechanically. "Starlight, as I had just said," she answered hesitating, "I'm not from here, but I guess you can call me a friendly neighbor." She smiled, if only for a second.

Tornado grimaced, as she regarded the woman's face from her lower standing. She despised it.

"That growing screen of white," Starlight said, signaling to her right, "is temporal cascading." She sighed. "Someone tampered with time and failed spectacularly."

Saitama held his blank look. "Is that even possible?"

"Of course not! She's lying," Tornado accused. With some effort she brought herself up to eye level. "Isn't it suspicious? What kind of explanation is that!"

Starlight took a second to answer, regarding Tornado's aura."I could do some exposition on the principles of dual time dimensions, or how magic can fold them, but I doubt you will be satisfied."

"Magic, huh. What now, ghost and unicorns are real!?"

"I realize it's an extraordinary assertion," she blinked, feeling uncomfortable. Tornado had kept scrutinizing her, giving her the evil eye, floating just above her. Pausing, she relaxed her shoulders and said, "but you can ignore it."

"What?" said Tornado.

"I really, really, don't need to have an argument now." Her wrist turned and a pebble was pluck from the ground. It was violently thrown after a movement of her index finger.

Their eyes followed it. Some distance after, it was curiously floating in mid air, as if the air was progressively becoming molasses.

"Say, you should continue like nothing happened; I didn't intend to cross in you way. I only need the man in the yellow jumpsuit," she said. "Saitama, isn't it?" She faced tornado. "He insisted on checking if you were fine. It's clear you can make it by yourself. Time passage accelerates the farther you go. You won't notice when we leave."

"Won't the cascade kill her?" Saitama said. "The thing you told me about."

Tornado felt like arguing, but what came out was a grunt.

"It's more like ceasing to experience time, than ceasing to exist. Don't worry much, if we fix it, none will know. That is, if you help me. I'm almost sure you will, the world as you know it depends on it. Rather, it's a matter of trust."

"What if I punch it with enough force?"

"I suppose you will only pass through," Starlight said. "It's only a theory, it would be unadvisable-"

The cloud of dust that Saitama left hadn't reached its maximum volume when he returned. "You are right."

"Oh."

"The other side, it's creepy." He said picking his hear. Tornado was grossed out.

"How so?" Starlight asked.

"Well," he started.

"Yes."

"I forgot." He scratched his nape. "There was a lot of noise, though."

Starlight consciously avoided blinking.

Tornado didn't let silence to form. "How come the Caped Baldy can waltz there and back?" she said. "and I wouldn't survive? What a joke."

"He's an anomaly," she stopped, mending her words. "In a good sense. I could spot him outside this timespace. Causality doesn't seem to affect him. We, in the other hand, are normal in comparison; even if there were no cascading, you would be changed in ways you won't perceive."

Tornado held a finger menacingly, "I have always been above anyone, even monstrous anomalies. If I wasn't injured I would-"

"Kid, I don't think you fully understand-"

"Kid? How do you dare!?" she said angrily, but faltering at the end. Tornado fought against herself. "You don't know who I am and what I am capable of!" Her body was imposing her limits; she was trembling. She needed to overcome that. "I can show you!"

Tornado was enveloped in a green aura.

"Oh, you angered her. I did that too, earlier today." Saitama commented, mostly to himself.

Tornado pushed. Her concentration was rewarded with a measly gust of wind and anger, which ended in sudden fainting. She promptly fell headway, making a thud.

"Ah, there goes the arguing." Saitama said.

Starlight stared at the collapsed body. "Is she fine? The blood tells me otherwise."

"Dunno."

She levitated Tornado's body, making sure she could breathe unimpeded. Turning towards Saitama, she said, "right. Do I need to explain?"

Saitama had crossed his arms. "You cannot punch the alarm clock before it wakes you up unless you punch it from the past. But you cannot punch it by yourself, so you need me to do it. That's what you want me to do, isn't it?"

"Er, your explanation it's akin in spirit. " She passed her fingers through her hair. "But technically wrong, and," she said, "we need to take a small detour."

"Why?" he asked.

"Let's say, at the moment, I do not know the exact way to fix your timeline."

Saitama's stare focused on Starlight.

"I came unprepared! I though, in all honesty, the anomaly would be an inanimate object. Where I come from, anomalies are never physically accessible. I sensed you and took the opportunity."

"Couldn't you go further in the past?"

"No. What you see now is the projection of a deeper manifold transformation. It's orthogonal to all almost known means of time travel."

Saitama put some fingers over his mouth. He thought that way he'd look knowledgeable. "So…"

"There's an artifact in my timeline that helps overcome similar restrictions," she answered quickly. "I'm sure I can use it as a starting point to find a spell that, well, uses you instead of that map to fix your world."

"So I'm like a magical time traveling map." He seemed to recall something.

"Yes?" Starlight had trouble understanding his tone.

"I still have one question," he said. Taking a serious position and pointing with two fingers, he said, "are you responsible in the first place?"

* * *

She had collapsed on the ground, paralyzed. She could hear the conversation, but she heeded not. She didn't care.

These days, she felt weak. She didn't cry; she had sincerely cried when time was appropriate. Instead, it was contempt, disgust, shame dancing in the surface of her mind, nothing more. Eyes were deceiving; deception could get you above, but not further than anyone.

She was no longer above herself, if she ever was. Had she found her limit? She had blamed her failure on foul play, but what was expected with monsters? She had always regarded them as mindless repugnant beasts. Senseless violence was their nature.

Then… why did monsters create an organization? Moreso, why were humans siding with them? It was those traitors who almost got her killed. They were worse than monsters.

She felt being put in a more dignified position. She hated being treated like a doll. They could do whatever they wanted, and she could only insult them mentally. What was the point?

With her back on the ground, she could only look at the sky. Even her eyelids betrayed her. It filled her with dread; what if there were stronger,even more astute beings out there. A group of aliens had came already. What's the earth compared to the vastness of space.

She needed to be stronger, for the earth's sake.

She needed no hero, but the world needed all those capable. Where was Blast?

She was interrupted by two arms in a yellow jumpsuit, nabbing her faster than her stomach could tolerate.

* * *

 _AN: My, this felt cheesy to write, and I hope you did not consider your time wasted. All comments, be it profoundly insightful or nitpicky, positive or negative are welcome. Ideas are welcome too. I plan to refine this further if feedback is received: I wrote this without worrying too much, because otherwise I wouldn't write anything._


End file.
